The Detroit rap duo Twiztid hasn’t been idling since amicably parting with Insane Clown Posse’s Psychopathic Records at the end of 2012.

During the past 16 months, Monoxide Child (Paul Methric) and Jamie Madrox (nee Spaniolo) have released a pair of EPs, 2013’s “A New Nightmare” and the brand new “Get Twiztid” as well as a mixtape, “4 The Fam Vol. 2.” They’re also starting a label — which they hope to announce this summer — and building their own studio in Livonia, with a new full-length album set to follow.

“We’re doing the things we wanted to do, stuff that should’ve been done years ago,” explains Monoxide Child. “I love that we have the control and know that there’s no one else to blame. So now we’re finally getting to implement these things, and if we want to do something, we do it.

“My true love is behind the scenes. it’s cool being on stage or whatnot, but finding talent, creating the next 20 years of music, that’s what’s in my head. So that’s what we’re doing now.”

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Twiztid is even doing a truncated version of its Bootleg Banner Tour — including it’s first-ever 420 show in Michigan, complete with an Easter Sunday egg hunt — in order to focus on the new album. And if there’s any lingering suspicions of discord between Twiztid and ICP, know that the two groups, along with rapper Blaze Ya Dead Homie, have teamed up for a new album by their side project Dark Lotus, which is due out this summer in time for ICP’s annual Gathering of the Juggalos.

“The people who are still saying there’s beef, they just want there to be beef,” Monoxide says. “We could take as many pictures together, do as many CDs together, and people will believe what we want to believe, no matter how many times you tell ’em (otherwise).

“And I get it. I totally understand it. It’s a little like a divorce and the kids feel like they have to choose. But they don’t. We’re cool. And if someone liked Twiztid just because of the record label we were on, I guess it’s time for them to move along. It means you just didn’t get Twiztid to begin with, so quit wasting your time.”

• Twiztid, Blaze Ya Dead Homie, the R.O.C., ABK and more perform Sunday, April 20, at the Crofoot Ballroom, 1 S. Saginaw St., Pontiac. Doors open at 10 p.m. Tickets are $15 and $20 in advance, $25 day of show. An official after party will take place afterward in the Pike Room at the Crofoot. Admission is $8. Call 248-858-9333 or visit www.thecrofoot.com.

5 Seconds of Summer

Australia’s 5 Seconds of Summer are looking for more than five — or 15 — minutes of success.

The teen quartet’s new EP, “She Looks So Perfect,” debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart this month, and its first full-length album is “pretty much ready” for release later this year, says guitarist Michael Clifford. The group is doing sell-out business on its current headlining tour, and it will spend its second consecutive summer on the road this year with good pals One Direction.

“It’s amazing,” says Clifford, 17, who formed 5 Seconds of Summer with classmates in Sydney. “When we started, I just assumed the U.S. was out of reach. When you start a band you kind of just do it for fun. You can never expect what’s going to happen, so when (success) does happen, it’s just amazing.”

Clifford and his mates do want people to understand that they come from more of a rock base than an act like One Direction, though the guitarist acknowledges that “everyone calls everyone a boy band these days.”

“You can’t escape it, really. We don’t really mind what people think of us as long as they know we write our stuff and play our own instruments.”

And the “She Looks So Perfect” EP does give a sense of the group’s roots via its cover of the Romantics’ “What I Like About You.”

“I heard their songs in a couple of movies or something,” Clifford says, “so I said to the guys, ‘What about this song ‘What I Like About You?’ I kind of had to bring them around to it, but after a while they were like, ‘Y’know what? That would be awesome.’

“Then we did it with (producer John Feldmann) and it came out really cool, which made me happy.”

• 5 Seconds of Summer performs Friday, April 18, at the Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are sold out. Call 248-399-2980 or visit www.royaloakmusictheatre.com.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. raised eyebrows, at least a bit, with “Produce,” a hip-hop mixtape it released earlier this year featuring collaborations with Murs, Asher Roth, Chuck Inglish, 112’s Slim and more.

But the Detroit-formed group’s Josh Epstein says the 16-track set, which follows the duo’s 2013 sophomore album “The Speed of Things,” has had little trouble converting any skeptics.

“People have told us it’s helped them contextualize our other records,” explains Epstein, who now resides in Los Angeles while DEJJ partner Daniel Zott remains in Detroit. “I think that the more sides of yourself and the more personality you show people, the easier it is for them to understand where everything that you’ve made fits in the context of your style and your overall aesthetic.

“So I think that putting out the mixtape, this contextualized some of our first and second records in terms of some of the hip-hop influences and just kind of where we are in terms of melody and rhythm. We want to just make things that we’re inspired to make, and hopefully people will stay with us.”

DEJJ is in the midst of making something new, too. Epstein says he and Zott are working on their third album, and he says the duo is “approaching it really open-minded,” writing with the members of its live band as well as with “The Speed of Things” producer Ben West and some hip-hop producers in Los Angeles.

“We’re still trying to figure out what the record is going to be,” Epstein says. “We have a ton of songs and are really excited by them. There’s some stuff that feels a little bit more band-y. It’s feeling like the easiest thing ever. The songs are just kind of pouring out, and they feel great. They feel like we don’t even have to tweak them at all.

“I think making the mixtape helped get us on a really cool creative path, in a cool zone and really relaxed. If something is good it’s good and we go for it, if not we go on to the next thing. It’s a pretty fertile time right now.”

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. and Tunde Olaniran perform Saturday, April 19, at the Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are sold out. Call 248-399-2980 or visit www.royaloakmusictheatre.com.

Boney James

It’s been a year since Boney James released his latest album, “The Beat.” And one thing he’s learned during the past 12 months is that the songs work well on stage.

“This record did have a little bit of a live flavor to it, a lot of live interaction, so it’s easy to translate into a live performance,” says the 52-year-old saxophonist, who was born James Oppenheim in Massachusetts and now resides in Los Angeles. “It has the same flavor; it’s the audience each night that’s the unknown quantity. It can really spur things on to a different energy.

“A lot of my show is about audience interaction. I think of recording as a whole other medium than playing it live. It’s apples and oranges. But the response to (‘The Beat’) has been great. I think people recognize that live flavor it has, and we’re able to improvise and expand it even further when we play live.”

Among the fan favorites is one of James’, too — his rendition of Stevie Wonder’s 1974 Motown hit “Don’t You Worry ’bout a Thing,” which accentuates the original’s Latin flavor.

“The melodies are so fantastic, and the chords, too,” says James, who’s working on his own new material now as well as producing tracks for an upcoming George Duke tribute album. “Stevie has always been a big inspiration for me. He’s an R&B guy with a lot of jazz influences in his music, and at the time I was awakening to music he was having his most fertile period, so his music was always influential on me.

“I’ve probably recorded three or four of (Wonder’s) songs over the years, and I’ve met him a few times. Thankfully he’s always really supportive and complimentary, which has been inspiring, too.”

Gary Graff writes about music for the Oakland Press and Digital First Media. His work can also be found at www.goanddomichigan.com, www.twitter.com/GraffonMusic and in the Facebook group Gary Graff on Music, while his Classic Rock Insider reports appear at www.wcsx.com.